Tradition is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about. All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death.
-G.K. Chesterton
A less macabre way of making his point would have been for Chesterton to say
ReplyDeletetradition is the democracy of those who have gone before.
At the same time, while the dead get a vote, they don't get a veto, which is the opposite danger inherent in "traditionalism" (in the negative, Pelikanian sense).
ReplyDelete